Pictured is an original Donkey Kong PCB circa 1981. It belongs to me. My high score, 1,076,000. This eclipses Billy Mitchell’s all time high score...which was recently taken down from the official video game scoreboard, Twin Galaxies.
This story hits home, in a way. You see, I’ve met Billy in person at Donkey Kong tournaments and had a chance to chat with the man. Below is Billy congratulating me after reaching the Kill screen and scoring 1,000,000+ live during the Kong Off 4 competition.
Hes is actually a nice guy when you’re just talking like normal people do. But, he has this persona to live up to. He is “the bad guy”, from the documentary The King of Kong, and he embraces that...to a fault. This is why most people dislike the man. They think he is a douche bag in real life. Not true. He has a nice family, wife and kids, and runs a good business. Try his hot sauce, it’s actually really good.
Thats not to say he isn’t a cheater in the video game world. Within the inner circle of Donkey Kong players, we have all suspected it for a long time. He has never gotten higher than around 900k in a real competition. His recorded games display poor gameplay which put him in statistically adverse situations...to the point where it is surprising he is able to survive to the end. The randomness of the game goes his way over and over.
In MAME, you can pause, restart, save your game...and this is what all the proof points to...Billy did not play on an original Donkey Kong arcade PCB. He played on MAME.
Dissapointing. Without Billy, there would be no Kong Off. No King of Kong. More than likely, no Twin Galaxies. And now, it’s been proven he cheated.
For me, the cheating part requires punishment...and that has been given. Now, I can see past the negative, and simply think about all the good that has spawned from his battle with Steve Wiebe...and all the great players that came out of the woodwork because of that documentary. I try to see the good of it all.
Steve Wiebe and I at the Kong Off 2:
Have you heard of this whole story? What are your thoughts?